How is a game that's gaining players slowly dying?
Not that either you, nor the OP would really be able to tell if anyone used a mod like this.
Also, linking to illegal mods, and using red text in posts are not allowed. OP I suggest you edit your post.

Except what I'm saying is that he's using his opinions as "fact". And what's better in this regard can only be personal opinion. I have personal opinions that aren't rosy red about the direction the game have takens, but going "the game was 10 times better" is just silly hyperbole.
Also pretending that CVs were weaker in CBT? That's.. hilarious.

You invent evidence where you have none. You don't have numbers on player retention, so stop pretending you do.
And of course max online players are related to total player count, but as with anything new, people will have a higher activity level at the start. Ie you can have 45k peaks with say, 100k active players, and 25k peaks with 100k slightly less active players (if you did pay attention, we did actually get some minimum semi active player count during some events with community goals). Much like how you see higher peaks during ranked/CW seasons, without this suddenly meaning twice as many players are actively playing, but when you do see a slow but steady increase overall even accounting for events, then you'd have to assume that a fairly large part of your supposed "diminishing" population is playing a lot more to make up for it.
As for advertisements, I saw plenty of them, but then.. so what, it's just a massive amount of throwing crap at the wall hoping some will stick, even if none of those actually prove what's better for either the game, or more fun.
As for the game changing, simply pretending that the game was better in every way in CBT (or even in OBT and farther) is just silly. The game had massive issues in CBT.
You pretend your opinions are facts, and you ignore actual facts. You go "I assure you" in the typical trumpian way, and that just doesn't assure anyone, and you pile on hyperbole that just makes you look even more trumpish. The result is just that your complaints seem entirely childish.
The simplest way to put it would be to just go "oh yes, everyone knows that McDonalds has the best food, they have to because they sell so much right?", but that would be as silly.

Concurrent players =! total player count
That any game will have a large influx of people that tries the game and leave is a given for any game, doubly so for a f2p game.
That alot will play the game a ton the first few weeks/months, and then turn that activity down to more reasonable levels? Also a given and what you see basicly everywhere else.
What's interesting if you're concerned about the health of the player base, is how long term player count, and activity, pans out. And while the player base isn't huge, by any metrics us players can check it's steadily trending upwards, though not by any amazing amounts.
The rest of that post is just more "more people would play if they did it how I want them to do it" with no actual evidence for this being true (or even that the game wouldn't be doing worse).

"Sheer brilliance of the human brain" got us homeopathy, a flat earth, religions, anti-vaxxers and oodles more.
Actually looking at available evidence got us things of actual value and truth.
Not understanding the burden of evidence is hardly surprising from people like this.

Fighting on foot in plate armour wasn't only practical, it was the usual way for english knights to fight (who would ride to the field of battle, then dismount and fight). Armour was about as heavy as a modern soldiers required gear, and the main limited was vision, breathing and heat far more than weight or somewhat restricted movements. Certainly a mass of people could bring down someone in armour, but armoured people would also expect to end up on the ground while fighting other armoured people, which is why they trained for it, and why Rondels were so popular. Much like how a tank today can get brought down by a mass of soldiers, at a large cost of men, if that tank is fighting entire alone. But that's a scenario where either were already truly effed and in a proper formation you'd have other soldiers fighting off these people.
And a pollaxe is designed to be used by someone in heavy armour to fight other people in heavy armour, and thus not really something you'd field an entire army where most would be fighting other people in far less armour (nor were they commonly particularly long, usually shorter than the person wielding it) and not at all designed with a special purpose to fight off people on horse (where a spear would be a better choice).

Ie, "I don't have absolutely every information, and I don't want to believe WG, so you should believe anyone who makes claims with no evidence or even against evidence".
"That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence"

The point is rather, that while there are uses for "leather" armour, it's not in any way similar to the fantazy fiction version of it, with the only small advantage for actual boiled leather over steel being weight and cost, because anything that provides protection like that is going to need to cover the same parts of the body, and hinder movement and visibility somewhat similarly.
As for weapons, swords (as I keep pointing out) were sidearms even for knights/men at arms, as spears and other polearms were your proper weapon for warfare, irrespective of cost to make. Nor were they your only backup weapons, as things like Rondels were a staple.
As a fully armoured knight, you'd want something like this. A weapon well suited to fight a fully armoured opponent, but also quite effective (though maybe not quite as effective as say a falchion) at cutting down peasant leavies.
And crossbows (and bows), armour was very effective against them, which is why people kept wearing it. Even if a lucky hit can get through a gap and kill someone, you'd still much rather have to be unlucky than just having to get hit anywhere. A fully armoured knight would be just as worried about a spear, or even more about 4-5 opponents brawling him down and sticking rondels into his armpits, groin or face.